Gakuen Kaitou Sensei
by gorgeousshutin
Summary: Extra! Extra! Extra! There's a Gakuen Kaitou at Ohtori! Her heroic mission: to steal from the Academy those specific 'keys' capable of unlocking the Forbidden Gates, and keep the villain that is the World's Evil imprisoned forever . . . . Guidance Counselor centric, this takes place in Seinen Kakumei's universe, but can stand alone. Updates to resume after Dec 26, 2013.
1. Prologue

**Gakuen Kaitou Sensei** (technically **Seinen Kakumei Utena** Part 17, but can be read on its own)

Utena and Penguindrum characters belong to their various owners.

**Note:** This is my first ever piece of dark-humor writing, so I'm hoping it won't fall flat on its face. As always, please C&C after reading ~

**Warning:** Future parts of the work may contain non-explicit depictions of both male and female rape.

**Prologue** (BETA-ed by the selflessly wonderful TheOnlyFlorence)

* * *

Time: Year of The Revolution  
Place: Ohtori Academy

At the end of the school hallway stood a simple door, nondescript except for the crude wooden sign hanging upon it. Beyond the door was a wooden flight of stairs, curving downwards into the shades pooling at its bottom. It was the ill-lit, largely unused basement level, where retired classrooms became makeshift storages. What windows the place had were cloaked under heavy curtains, keeping the lights out and the darkness in.

Within this darkness – thick, suffocating, seemingly without ends - was a single open door, beyond which a murky red light could be seen spilling out like blood in deep waters.

And, emitting this red light, a curtained screen on a stage, upon which lanky silhouettes were acting out what appeared to be a Japanese superhero drama . . .

(Crowd [surrounding superhero's base]: Kamen-sama, our, noble masked hero! We beg you . . . please save us! Come out and fight the world's evil for us! Hurry, Kamen-sama!)

Offstage, under shades, two feminine, fluttery figures were gushing over a still, seated third.

"Join us," urged the one wearing a big ribbon atop her curls, "C'mon, join us!" From beside her, the one with twin pigtails bobbed her head up and down in girlish excitement.

"Surely that a new world would open up for our Drama Club if you join us!"

(Bedridden Kamen [inside superhero's base]: Let me . . . fight for them . . . )

(Kamen's Love Interest [by Kamen's side]: You mustn't move anymore! Your wounds . . .)

"You bet it'd open up!"

"Fans of yours would be joining in droves!"

(Kamen [gasping]: Have to . . . be a hero . . . for the people!)

(Crowd [persisting]: Please save us . . . fight for us . . .)

(Kamen's Love Interest [pleading]: Stop now; don't fight anymore-)

"Oh, you know I cannot act," said the rail-thin female - one with her hair up in a severe high updo - now clamored upon by the others. Long legs crossed, updo-topped head tilted coyly to one side, the female was idly reading off an opened binder on her lap – one illuminated by a small torch she held in a spidery hand. "I would be no good on stage."

(Kamen: Have to . . . fight on . . .!)

(Kamen's Love Interest: You'll die . . .!)

"That's no big deal!" The clamoring duo persisted on, undeterred. "Roses will spin in people's visions as they behold your beauty!"

"Not anymore." Sounding somewhat exasperated - yet still warmly indulgent - the clamored female dabbed at her shadow-veiled eyes with a silk handkerchief. "This rose is past her season – even without bearing fruit, she's now withered flora in the eyes of the world."

"Tsk, tsk," the ribbon-wearing girl waved off her words. "The world has always _sucked_ at seeing the truth to begin with!"

"Especially if said truth is hidden behind a mask as magnificently magical as yours!" added the pigtailed girl, picking up and waving their target's horn-rimmed purple shades about.

(Kamen's Love Interest: Just let me handle this! [With that, she takes the mask off the Kamen hero, and dons it herself.])

(Unmasked Kamen [in shock]: W-What're you doing?)

"A mask, you say?" asked the clamored female, taking back the whimsical shades without glancing up. The pigtailed girl nodded firmly.

"A mask."

(Kamen's Love Interest: By taking your mask, I shall take over your role as the heroic Kamen-sama! [She points a finger at the unmasked Kamen's nose.] So _you_ don't have to fight anymore: just stay down and let _me_ battle the world's evil in your place!)

(Kamen [exasperated]: My love interest, you can't just don my mask and call yourself a Kamen! Like any worthy title, the Kamen status has to be earned! For you to just the take the mask away from me, in such a crude, thieving manner-)

(Kamen's Love Interest [defiant]: Then I'll take on the less noble title of a Kaitou a.k.a _Freak Thief_, and rob, steal and cheat my way towards the vanquishing of the world's evil! [Pause.] As for you . . . you just stay behind here, out of the spotlight, and cater to my needs, okay?)

(Kamen: WHAT?!)

"Now, of course we know you need to keep the mask on, to fool the world into thinking you're ordinary," said the ribbon-wearing girl, before dropping her voice conspiratorially as she spoke in the female's ear. "But, here, where all things go in our Theatre of Shadows . . . you can be your true, striking, outstanding self again!"

(Kaitou a.k.a. Kamen's Love Interest [adjusting her mask as she goes out to greet the crowd]: World, here I am at your service ~)

(Crowd: Hurry! Go out fight like the hero you are, Kamen-sama! Kaitou-sama! Or Whatever-the-hell-you-are-sama! Just please fight our battles for us . . . please fight the world's evil for us!

(Kaitou [makes victory sign at the crowd]: Will do!)

"So join us already, Dyako-sama! Our latest production simply _demands_ a leading lady like yourself-"

"W-Who's there?!"

The fearful, childish voice coming from outside the hall shattered the surreal atmosphere like a hammer blow. As hurried footsteps fast approached from the hallway outside, the red light dimmed, while on and off stage, the shadowy figures all rapidly slinked back into the surrounding darkness and out of view-

All except one – the bespectacled female with the high updo, who put the binder aside as she rose to her full, impressive height to await the intruder.

"H-HELLO?" snarled the scrawny schoolgirl with the twin hightails now barging into the hall with her mop raised weapon-like. "I'm not scared of no-_ACK!_"

In the middle of the unlit, drape-covered hall stood a tall, sparse-figured, bespectacled woman of around forty – one whom the girl easily recognized.

"La Merd . . . I mean, _Lamer_-sensei . . ."

"Sonoda-san. " Lamer, Dyako, guidance counselor of Ohtori Academy, stared down upon the girl from behind the masking of her horn-rimmed shades. "I do believe that I've specifically assigned Kiryuu-san to be the one on cleanup duty throughout this week." At that, Keiko fidgeted in an attempt to think up some appropriate reply.

"O-Oh, that's . . . umm . . . Nanami-sama ordered me do it for her!" She started acting all victim-like then, complete with tears, clenched fists, and swaying hips. "Sensei, you know how powerful Nanami-sama is around this school! If I disobey her, she'll . . ." And the words trailed off, as her gaze chanced upon the opened binder on a seat near where Lamer was standing

There were two text-cluttered pieces of paper, recognizable as student files due to the student I.D. photos attach to them.

They were two stamp-sized photos of a redheaded boy and a pink-haired girl, respectively. In spite of the surrounding dimness, the girl thought she could recognize their-

"Sonoda-san." Lamer's crisp, perfunctory voice drew the nosy girl's attention away from the photos. "You're dismissed from cleanup duty. Go put the mop and bucket back where they were, and you can go." The girl blinked at how easily she had been let off the hook.

"Yes; yes of course, Sensei. I'll be going-"

"Oh, and Sonoda-san?"

Already halfway out the door, Keiko arched backwards in an awkward, insect-like manner to smile stiffly at Lamer.

"Yes . . . ?"

"If you could, tell the Kiryuu siblings that they will both stay away from Himemiya Anthy if they know what's good for them."

"Umm . . . Sensei . . ." Face paling, the student stuttered in hesitance . . . and fear. Watching her, the teacher's thin lips tensed into a flat line.

"Nevermind. I'll give them some proper guidance myself." A pause. "You can go now."

" . . . yes, Sensei!" And the girl scurried outside with the frantic speed of a fleeing bug, apparently eager to avoid getting further held back by any more demands from the school authority. A series of loud footsteps going up the stairs signaled her exiting the basement; shrill voices, both hers and those of others, came faintly audible even from a distance:

" . . . all alone in that unlit hall impersonating several voices all on her own . . . crazy old witch!"

"That's so freaky! To think the rumored ghost haunting the old basement theatre is actually the guidance counselor . . . ."

"Is she even mentally fit to work here?"

"La Merde's probably set on calling Nanami-sama on her bullying Himemiya . . ."

As the girlish chatter faded completely out of earshot, so too returned the shadows, clamoring Lamer-sensei as they did before

_". . . join us, Dyako-sama, join us on stage . . ."_

"I can't," answered Lamer, picking up her riding crop by one hand, and her large binder on the other. "My teaching job keeps me busy enough as it is, and my side job keeps me busier still."

_"Oooh . . . you're talking about that **gig** of yours!"_ exclaimed a third girlish shadow – one spotting a hightail – now materializing beside the woman, who smiled at it with the ease of an old friend.

"Yes, that 'extra extra' as you'd call it, Cyako-chan."

_"Is it that time of **his** eternity again?"_ asked the one wearing the ribbon; Lamer nodded.

"I'm afraid so, Ayako-chan. The World's Evil just won't give up on trying to unlock the Forbidden Gates keeping him imprisoned; his Unholy Sister is again trying to forge him a new set of keys to open the lock." The pigtailed shadow started rubbing her hands together anxiously.

_"So . . . which one of the keys in forging are you going to steal away from the Unholy Sister this time?"_

"Not one, Byako-chan; two." Again flipping open the binder, Lamer's shade-masked gaze fell upon the revealed student files, upon the images of the brilliant teens as captured by the camera. "A girl aspiring to become a prince, a boy aspiring to become a witch . . . theirs are the keys from among the current crop most likely to be able to open the Forbidden Gates." She closed the binder with a brisk, audible snap. "Which is why I _must_ remove them both from the Academy, to make sure that neither of them could ever be used in opening the Gates' lock." A flick of her wrist sent her riding crop thrusting forward, foil-like. "My good sense as a righteous person will _not_ suffer the World's Evil gaining the power to dominate this troubled world!" The woman then 'oh-ho-ho-ed' in her lady-like manner, as the girl-shaped shadows applauded her theatrics like childish fans.

_"Then, towards this noble end, we shall **again** be counting on our Kamen Kaitou Dyako-sama to rob, steal, and cheat her way towards the continued imprisonment of the World's Evil – just like she always did before!"_

_"Yes, please keep him imprisoned, like forever, and ever . . . and his **sister** with him too!"_

_"Ne . . . using morally questionable means like robbing, stealing and cheating to fight evil . . . is that [i]really_ such a good idea?"[/i]

"Oh . . . you know, it's not like I even have a choice in the matter." Walking out the door, Lamer waved a thin hand backwards and at the hall's shadowy inhabitants. "Then, wish me luck again this time around, girlfriends ~" The shadows waved her goodbye in their jaunty manner.

_"Good luck, plus our undying love, Kaitou-saaamaaaaaaaa ~"_

* * *

**End Prologue**


	2. Part A

**Gakuen Kaitou Sensei** (technically **Seinen Kakumei Utena** Part 17, but can be read on its own)

Utena and Penguindrum characters belong to their various owners.

**Note:** This is my first ever piece of dark-humor writing, so I'm hoping it won't fall flat on its face. As always, please C&C after reading ~

**Warning:** Parts of the work may contain non-explicit depictions of both male and female rape.

**Part A** (BETA-ed by the indescribable TheOnlyFlorence, who finished his edit in record time so I can post this before I lose regular Internet access)

* * *

Time: Year of The Revolution  
Place: Ohtori Academy

_'How many times have I done this already?'_

* * *

". . . you're a _girl!_ So why do you keep on wearing this . . . so-called boy's uniform?!"

"Now, Sensei, there's no rule in the Rule Book that says a girl can't wear a boy's uniform. Looks pretty princely on me, don't you think?"

"Tenjou-san-"

"Oops! I'm late for my next class! So, in that case . . . tada~"

Thus Tenjou Utena - that female student aspiring to become a prince via non-regulatory fashion – _again_ fled from the troublesome teacher, as she then hurried off into the distance. Left in the dust, so to speak, Guidance Counselor Lamer Dyako-sensei stomped red-faced upon her high heels amidst the on-looking students' bemused gazes.

"You little . . ." Biting down on a lacy hankie, she then let drop tears of matronly frustrations. "I'm doing this for your own good! Girls who act like boys are like girls who lay eggs: neither shall ever be accepted by the grownup world!" She tried to go after the fleeing tomboy - now almost a dot in the distance. "Tenjou-san! You mustn't persist with such foolishness-"

*_Slip . . . !_*

It was only after sprawling down face first that Lamer noticed the banana peal she must have inadvertently stepped upon in her haste. She also saw this narrow stretch of a shadow, shapely yet slim, slinking along the ground and up beside her.

"Oh my," said the female student now glancing down upon the woman. "Looks like you've had quite the fall, Lamer-sensei."

". . . so I have," replied Lamer, quickly forcing down her expression of pain as she rose to her full, narrow height, such that now she was the one staring down upon the shorter, seemingly younger girl. "Himemiya-san, nice to see you _still_ enrolled here as a student." Her voice lowered into a darkly husky tone. "How many years has it been since? Twenty? Thirty?"

"Lamer-sensei has such a formidable grasp on your memories," commented Himemiya Anthy, without answering the woman's question. "I think this is the first time we've spoken since Tsuchiya-sempai took his leave from school."

"So it is," said Lamer, thin lips quirking in an ironic smirk. "Tenjou-san, as she is now, must be very important to you and your brother both, Himemiya-san."

To that, Anthy merely deepened her smile, saying nothing.

* * *

_'How many times . . . ?'_

* * *

"So long as they stay in this tool shack they call the Academy, all are handy tools to me."

Learning a prominent shoulder against the window frame, Ohtori Akio had his piercing gaze trained upon the conversation – or rather, confrontation - between his sister and the Guidance Counselor currently taking place down below. Mrs. Ohtori – slinky of attire, sultry of posture – sauntered up from behind him with two filled wine glasses, one of which he took without looking,

"Now that my sister is almost done forging the new batch of keys, it looks like that restless hand is again itching to reach out." Sipping on the red wine, he wrapped a red-sleeved arm around the agelessly glamorous woman, who now had draped herself cat-like against his towering build. "But I do wonder . . . ."

Down below, the Guidance Counselor snapped out something inaudible from their height, before walking briskly off and away. He saw that Anthy had her hazy green eyes following after the taller woman for brief a while longer, before she was glanced up and right at him and his 'Mother-in-law'.

" . . . just how many times does this Kaitou think she'd get away with her thieving act?"

* * *

/"Kiryuu Nanami-san? Yes. It's me again. And yes, since you've claimed to be up to your neck in club activities, I will be expecting you at the Student Consultation Room after hours. Yes, I'm fine with it being later in the evening . . ."/

* * *

"Are we going to talk about this _again?_"

They faced off from across the table, with the Guidance Counselor seated against the harsh artificial light source that rendered her a stark silhouette, and her rich brat student glaring at her with narrowed dark eyes.

"Lamer-sensei, you can't still be thinking that _I'm_ the one behind Himemiya-sempai getting bullied?" asked Kiryuu Nanami, impatience twisting her otherwise pretty features as she strummed her manicured nail tips against the tabletop. "Keiko, Yuuko, and Aiko are all their own persons. I can't just puppet them into slapping Himemiya-sempai around now, could I?" While she spoke, the teacher occupied herself by idly toying with a small black and white photo in a frame – a gesture that annoyed the girl to no end. "These people are my friends, not my slaves. Surely you can't hold me accountable for their actions?"

"Your friends, huh?" Putting the framed picture back on the table, Lamer then cast her shade-veiled glare upon Nanami. "Kiryuu-san, have you learned nothing from the incident with Himemiya's curry?" Just as she expected, the girl jolted in shock at the question.

"Eh?! What're you . . . how'd you know about that, Sensei?"

"Do you really think 'bad-cooking' is all it takes to exchange even human minds?" Even as she spoke, the Guidance Counselor was slowly but surely edging forward around the table and towards her student. "Do you not find it . . . dangerous to mess around with someone capable of inducing that?"

"W-What're you trying to say?" Nervously looking away from the advancing teacher, the girl's shifty gaze fell upon the framed photo on the table . . . but ended up staring, entranced.

At first glance, the black and white photo appeared to be one showing a quartet of slender young girls wearing the Ohtori uniform . . . only that three out of the four were obscured under dark shades; not only that, but those three silhouettes were _moving_ on the otherwise still image, as they clamored around the one shade-free girl in this animated, hug-y feel-y manner-

_*Swish!*_

Yelping in fright as she recoiled from a whipping blur of motion narrowly missing her face, it took the young girl a while to realize that the Guidance Counselor now had her ridding crop out, with it's tip pressing down upon a struggling rodent pinned against the tabletop. Feeling some pressure, Nanami glanced down to see the older woman's thin palm pressing against her chest - the gesture was one likely intended to shove her out of the way as the woman slapped the rodent down . . .

"Huh?" Nanami's dark eyes blinked in recognition as she studied the 'rodent'. "Isn't that . . . Chu-Chu?" The Guidance Counselor nodded.

"I see Himemiya-san has her familiar spying on you already," said Lamer, her long-limbed, sparse figure poised in her sleek, almost fencer-like stance. "Too late: you've been officially targeted. You will not be let off the hook until that person is completely done with you -" Her sentence got cut off by the impossibly malleable Chu-Chu somehow slipping out from under the crop's tip, before it rapidly scurried off the table – knocking the strange framed picture face down in the process - and out a narrow gap through the window. "Damned little devil . . ."

"What is a 'familiar' anyway?" asked Nanami, disconcerted. "Chu-Chu is the weirdo's-Himemiya-san's pet mouse, that's all . . . ."

"Oh?" Thin lips further thinning, Lamer poked at her student's bag with her riding crop. "Can a 'pet mouse' be so intelligent as to plant bugs in your backpack?" Eyelids fluttering in unsettled nerves, the young blonde gingerly opened up her bag to check.

"Who'd put spying devices in my- ARGGG!" A small swarm of ladybugs flew out of the bag right then, hitting the girl in the face and rendering her a screeching, flailing mess. Thin face taut, Lamer walked around the table to swipe the 'bugs' off of the frantic youngster with her crop.

"You see? This is but a small glimpse of the true horror behind the Rose Bride's innocuous façade." Done with clearing the troublesome insects off the now badly shaken girl, the Guidance Counselor then faced her solemnly. "I wouldn't stay in this school if I were you, Kiryuu-san." The teacher's words apparently surprised her student into making a visible effort in recomposing herself.

"W-Why do you know about the Rose Bride, Sensei?"

"Why do _you_ know, Kiryuu-san?"

"I . . ." Biting down on her lower lip, Nanami glanced awkwardly away as she ran a hand unnecessarily through her blonde locks. "I know everything that concerns my Onii-sama." Lamer's horn-rimmed sunglasses glinted as if from shifting lights.

"Then . . . you know about the Student Council's involvement with the Rose Code." The Guidance Counselor lowered her voice ominously. "You know about the Dueling Game taking place in the forest behind the school." The student wiped a hand against her sweaty brows.

"S-So what if I do? What's it to the likes of you? You ain't even on the Council . . ." The woman tsk-ed pointedly at her words.

"Kiryuu-san, a generation goes, and a generation comes, but the Academy remains the same as ever. What once was is what remains, and what remains is what will be. There is nothing new on this campus – that is including the Student Council's Dueling Game, and the World's Evil that's behind it."

"You mean the World's End . . . Or the Ends of the World," muttered Nanami, slim arms crossed so tightly she might as well be hugging herself. "That's what Onii-sama called him . . . them, anyway."

"A rose by any other name still is that same rose – and no less thorny," stated Lamer, her thin face now further chiseled under sharp shades. "For one, your brother's situation is not in any way safer than those of his predecessors in the Council-"

*Ring!*

Producing her cell phone, she held the device to her ear. "Speaking." Pause. "Oh . . ." She glanced slowly over towards Nanami. "I understand. I'll be there shortly." The teacher then ended the call under her student's uncertain gaze.

"Lamer- sensei . . . ?"

"Kiryuu Nanami-san." Brows creased, the older woman clasped a thin, spidery hand upon Nanami' slim shoulder. "Brace yourself for some bad news." She then leaned forward and spoke right into the youngster's ear, all the while sliding her hand down from the latter's shoulder and to the chest . . .

A sharp, shrill gasp tore itself out from between Nanami's parted lips like a frantic bird. Eyes rolled up into their sockets, the girl's slim torso convulsed backwards as she started glowing at the chest - right underneath Lamer's pressing palm. As the older woman slowly pulled back her palm, so too did a long, curved sword blade came to protrude out from the glowing light-

"Lamer-kun!"

Jolting at the sudden call, Lamer quickly retracted her hand as Nanami – no longer aglow – collapsed to the floor. As she fell, her sword – already overextended - dropped and snap from impacting the hard floorboards. Upon breaking, however, the sword's two broken halves somehow spontaneously reshaped themselves into a sword and dagger set with an organic fluidity, prior to sliding smoothly back inside the girl's chest.

Just then, the door flew open to reveal a stout, bespectacled middle-aged man, who hurried up towards the unconscious girl.

"Kiryuu Nanami . . ." Checking the child – slender limbs sprawled about like those of a carelessly discarded marionette - the bespectacled man then turned slowly, darkly towards the Guidance Counselor. "You . . ."

"It is as you can see," said the woman, sparse figure seemingly brittle as she faced awkwardly away from the man. "Kiryuu-san had passed out from the unfortunate news regarding her brother's injury. Let's get her to the infirmary before we head to the meeting . . . Vice Principal-san."

Glasses glinting as he stared at the Guidance Counselor, the Vice Principal then lifted the petite young girl into his arms in one brisk, effortless motion, and carried the child out of the room and down the hallway. Following the man wordlessly from behind, Lamer's fists remained balled up all the way through their walk to the infirmary.

* * *

"Let's begin."

The (hastily arranged) emergency meeting was one comprised of members of the school board, the faculty and the teachers familiar with the student in trouble. Cloaked under dark shades from where they sat around the long conference table, those assembled faced the bright projection screen upfront with their appropriately stern expressions.

"Senior High 11th Grade, Class A, Saionji Kyouichi, current Student Council Vice President," said the Vice Principal, solemnly reciting what was worded onscreen. "The young man injured Student Council President Kiryuu Touga via a weapon attack. President Kiryuu had just left the infirmary with his sister but moments ago, with promise that the authorities will not be notified of the shameful incident. How is the Academy to deal with this . . . unfortunate situation?"

"Saionji Kyouichi-san has violated the Academy's rules of conduct in an utmost flagrant manner," stated Guidance Counselor Lamer, appearing rigidly unyielding in her stance. "I recommend expulsion." A member of the School Board deepened his frown at her words.

"Saionji's father has been contributing generously to the Academy's Endowment Fund since his son's enrolment. For us to extract discipline on his son now . . ."

"Only that Kiryuu's father contributes even more to that same Fund. I recommend expulsion."

"But, including Tsuchiya Ruka's taking leave just last year, Saionji Kyouichi's expulsion will mean the our Academy's exemplary Student Council be reduced to only three members."

"New candidates can easily fill in for the former members. I recommend expulsion."

Another member of the Board cut in with his coolly even voice. "To make such an important decision when both the Chairman and the Acting Chairman are absent . . ." Lamer remained unfazed.

"Chairman Ohtori had been bedridden since the Kiga Subway Incident six years ago, and the Acting Chairman had left town since earlier in the day. I recommend expulsion."

"But-"

"I recommend expulsion."

"Aa-ah, Lamer-sensei recommends expulsion," sing-songed the immaculately-groomed Music Teacher, as he idly fiddled with his thin mustache.

"And we all know what that means," muttered the tanned Phys Ed Instructor with the narrow, smiling eyes seated beside him. "Isn't that right, Vice Principal-san?"

"Saionji Kyouichi shall be punished by expulsion," said the Vice Principal without an ounce of irony to his voice. "Any objections?"

"None," drawled the Music Teacher.

"None," concurred the Phys Ed Instructor.

The school board members, on the other hand, merely offered their steely silence.

"Meeting adjourned," announced the Vice Principal as he flipped the projector shut. Striding up and past his packing colleagues, the bespectacled man stopped in front of the Guidance Counselor, currently gathering her stuff. "Lamer-kun, a moment."

Pausing for a moment, the uppity-seeming woman then suddenly donned a startlingly playful front, as she gushed and twirled on her heel like some love-stuck young girl. "I'm so honored, to get asked on a evening date by the Vice-Principal!" She then started rummaging through her lady's handbag. "It's probably too late to do a mask treatment now, but should I at least fix my make-up? Or maybe change my hairstyle . . ."

"Just hurry the hell up already!" snapped the Vice President, as he then grabbed the Guidance Counselor and fled under a roomful of watchful, disdainful eyes.

* * *

"Now, what business do you have with me, VP-kun?"

Leaning against the stone railing of the Vice Principal Office's small balcony, Lamer regarded the weathered, night-darkened stone surface of the building upfront with an icy frown. From inside his office, 'VP-kun' could be seen reddening in the face in spite of the dim lighting.

"You shall address me as the _Vice Principal,_" growled the man, prior to sighing in exasperation. "Geez, you just won't give up on your fool's quest, will you?"

"Methinks you can be more specific," said the Guidance Counselor, still not turning around. The Vice Principal's stout figure visibly tensed in growing agitation.

"We both know why there's no strict rule in Ohtori's Rule Book specifying how girls cannot wear the boy's uniform. The oyster cannot bear pearl without a bead inserted, a princely sword cannot be forged without princely aspiration; for some, a princely aspiration cannot be sustained without donning a prince's costume.

"Is that not why you've been _targeting_ Tenjou Utena since last semester, Kaitou-Sensei-san?"

At that, Lamer turned to glance over a padded shoulder and at the man, who held her bespectacled gaze with his.

"Since stealing _that_ from my possession, your have gained eyes that can see all hearts, and the hands with which to seize them." He began striding up towards her in certain, purposeful steps. "Surely you can see that Tenjou Utena and Kiryuu Touga are the only ones from this round of Duelists who could open the Gates? You only need to keep their soul swords out of the Himemiyas' reach to keep the Power from being unsealed. So why are you preying on even irrelevant children the likes of Kiryuu's little sister? Breaking one's soul sword will increase said individual's emotional volatility . . . and the girl is nothing if not volatile to begin with. This, after you having almost killed Tsuchiya Ruka just last year -" Lamer's deliberately shrill titter cut him right off.

" 'Preying on'? 'Almost killed'? Please." Turning sleekly around, the tallish woman then glared down and upon the shorter man. "I do not need to hear that from someone whose job is to procure children for a monster who makes human sacrifices of them, _Ex_-Kamen-san." Jolting as if struck, the Vice Principal turned awkwardly away from the Guidance Counselor, who appeared more hurt than pleased by his reaction. "You aren't even going to rebut what I said? That's right . . . ." She took a moment readjusting her horn-rimmed shades. "Ever since I seized your mask and donned its power, I have indeed targeted numerous students from within the Academy, aiming to either seize their soul swords or expel them." Her voice grew husky and dark. "How many times have I crumbled the spirits of innocent, unsuspecting children, just to keep those monstrous siblings from reaching them first? Yes, it's criminal what I do, but what choice do I have? The Gates must be kept locked, or else the monstrosity that is Ohtori/Himemiya Akio will regain the Power of Dios, and again have full-control over the world beyond Ohtori Academy's narrow confines! Through decades past, I've been doing my damnedest protecting the world at large from this great evil . . . you . . . what have you been doing through all that time you've stopped being the Kamen?" The woman took a step forward, such that she now was right in the man's face. "Are you really content to be nothing more than a willing tool in the World's Evil's tool shack?" The Vice President tried backing away, but was held in place by her gnarled fingers digging into his shoulder. "It wasn't that long ago . . . have you truly forgotten what we've lost – what _you've_ lost – to the World's Evil, whom you're now loyally working for?!" Raising her riding crop with her other hand, she aimed it at the stone building up front – specifically, the sign that read 'Nemuro Memorial Hall'. "The building that shouldn't be is right outside your office window! VP-kun . . . have you really forgotten about the fire from twenty years ago? Have you already forgotten about . . ." her voice started cracking at the edges, ". . . them?"

"Lamer-kun . . ." mumbled the Vice Principal – still facing away - before trailing off as if at a loss for words. Watching him, Lamer's brittle stance came to slouch over with weary resignation, such that the graying, scrawny middle-aged woman now looked even older than she already was.

* * *

_' No matter how many times I do this, it will never be enough.'_

'With no way of killing off those undead monsters roaming the Academy, I can only continue sacrificing away what young, noble children I can spot on this campus - before they do.

'Mine is a crime with no end in sight.'

* * *

**End Part A**

**Endnote:** Again, I will not be able to get this out on time – right before I'm to lose Internet next week - if not for **TheOnlyFlorence** editing at _top_ speed for my sake. I don't know how many here are still following this story. Should you be generous enough to give C & C, please also include kudos to this wonderful human being: he's the one who helped make this available now and not 2 months later.


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